2012 – Photo Review of the Year

An odd thing happened when I started putting this post together. I approached it expecting to struggle to find pictures I liked to cover the whole year. It is has been a very busy, very work oriented year (not in a bad way, has been a lot of fun) so generally what I will loosely term “creative” output has reduced. I did manage to get a short story out for this book. To my surprise, it seemed that I did still manage to take quite a few photos over the year, one benefit of being at least determined to always carry my camera with me.

January

A trip to see Billy Connolly in Blackpool in January and we were delighted by a very sunny Saturday. This generated quite a few photos which generated a fair number of photos, some of which have already made an appearance herein here, here and here.

Blackpool in January

These guys turned up on Britain’s Got Talent later in the year, very fine dancers they were too.

Britain’s Got Talent Dancers

January also saw the beginning of the demise of what was given the approximate name of ‘garage’. It never did see any car in it. When it was empty we did one final set of photos.

Assassin’s Creed

February

Clearly, the most obvious thing to do on Valentine’s Day is to take a picture of the sunset out of your bathroom window.

Valentine’s Day Sunset

March

March saw the arrival of a new model family member, wee Z. Here she is with Special K.

K&Z

April

This is a very rare photo. It was deemed good enough and in the right colour scheme to make it onto the living room wall.

Peacock At Five Sister’s Zoo

May

A jaunt to the West and wander round Kelvingrove Art Gallery Museum got me this photo and many more.

Kelvingrove Heads

In May, wee Z was now old enough to stare at her old Uncle (well, the camera).

Wee Z

June

Went to the Robot event at East Fortune. If memory serves, I had a terrible hangover.

Concorde Engine

July

Holidays in July so lots of photos to choose from. This is my favourite. Perhaps not the best photo but the pantheon was the highlight of the holiday, somewhere I’d always wanted to go and it was every bit as impressive as I’d imagined. There are some more holiday photos here.

Pantheon Ceiling

Also in July I put my beloved and trustworthy 20D to one side and got myself a 5D Mkii – I took this photo the first day I used the 5D. Wasn’t an entirely good day from a photography perspective but this is the image that convinced me that the 5D was going to be ace, not much light at ISO1600.

E with 5D

August

“He ain’t ugly, he’s my brother.”

@khev

September

Over numerous visits to Edinburgh Zoo, there have been a number of animals that have always eluded this photographer’s lens. I’ve snapped the koalas before but the 20D didn’t really cope in the low light and the koalas were usually asleep up the back somewhere. No suprise then that I chose this for September, a koala, awake! I also got a shot of the wolverine that day too, didn’t win the lottery though.

Koala at Edinburgh Zoo

Another luck shot from that day, peering over a crowd of people, the jaguar turned to look at me.

Jaguar Lying

And here’s me with Iain Banks and Will Jordan at the launch of the Safe Space Write-A-Thon.

Me, Iain Banks and Will Jordan

October

First time I went out to try my new 24-105mm in the wild and I got a nice sky.

Sunset at Cramond

November

A little bit of fun with Street Photography in November. More from that day here.

The Race

December

Finally got round to getting some studio stuff setup in the gym/garage. It’s amazing how many more photos you take when you don’t have lots of faff time to setup. My Dad was dragged in under duress but I’m glad he agreed, really like this. Investing in Silver Efex Pro was a good idea too.